Publish And Distribute, A Composers Guide

Self-publishing
is becoming a popular market amongst the independent professional community. Print-on-demand
(POD) and aggregator websites have become vast over this past decade. Self-publishing
has its advantages over obtaining publishing deals the traditional way. As
visited before, to get a publishing deal the traditional way, a query
letter needs to be created to obtain an agent. Once
the agent is attained, a press
kit must be created to
showcase your identity as an artist, something like a resume. This will allow
an agent to shop your works to a publisher, in hopes of getting a publishing deal.
As for Self-publishing, it is possible to publish works without the involvement
of an established third-party. Self-publishing forwards the author
responsibility and control over the entire publishing process. This process
includes design, file formats, price, distribution channels, marketing and
public relations. The author can either do it all themselves, or outsource the
process to companies that offer these services.

Self-publishing
through outsourcing to a POD or an aggregator website, really only has two
requirements and that is having the material ready at an industry professional
level. Likewise, the material must adhere tocopyright guidelines, which requires that you own or have obtained all rights
to any content you wish to publish. When it comes to print on demand and aggregator websites
that strictly pertains to music, there are many digital businesses worth
mentioning. Businesses such as CDBaby,
Tunecore, Createspace, Mondotunes, and that are just to name a
few. However, for this discussion our focus will pertain solely to publishing
and distribution through CDBaby.com.

CDBaby
has various levels to the services
they offer such as single, single pro, album and album pro. These options are
as follows; album sign-up is for $49 per album and offers you CD, Vinyl and
download sales on CDBaby.com, with worldwide digital and physical distribution.
Upgrading to the pro album sign-up for $99 per album, offers the same benefits
of the album sign-up. However, this option includes song/songwriter
registration and global royalty collection, which relieves the stress of
dealing with a PRO.
Single song sign-up for $12.95 per single offers download sales on CDBaby.com
and worldwide digital distribution. This option however does not offer physical
sales; it does offer a UPC bar code for
an additional $5 for those that need it. Pro single song sign-up for $39 per
single offers the same benefits of the single song sign-up, but with the
inclusion of song/songwriter registration and global royalty collection.

Want to
know how much does CDBaby keep in revenue and what do you keep in revenue.
Well, when selling CD or Vinyl, CDBaby keeps $4 per unit sold. So for example,
if you sell your album for $13, you get paid $9 per album sold. CDBaby downloads works like this;
CDBaby keeps only 9% of each sale, while you keep 91%. However, Digital distribution sales from CDBaby
partners such as iTunes, Amazon MP3, Facebook music store, Google play,
Spotify, etc., entitles CDBaby to keep 9% of the net income, while you keep the
other 91%. CDBaby offers many other services such as disc manufacturing,
which for various price tiers grant you a set amount of CD’s in Jackets with
shrink wrap. Additionally, you can also buy HostBaby web hosting,
which is web hosting for musicians, a site-design Wizard, unlimited bandwidth,
email, and a mailing list manager. This will grant you to have all you will
need to begin a full-fledged website to promote and keep fans updated on your
works.

Sync Licensing is
a feature that CDBaby offers catered to those artists who prefer to compose for
television and film. This incredible feature allows your songs to be available
for placement in Hollywood films, TV shows, and video game productions. On top
of this, if your music is used you will get paid. In addition to placements, Ad
revenue can be made when your music is used in videos on YouTube, it does not
matter who uploads your music it will be recognized and money will be made from
it. This will also forward you the opportunity to license your tracks to
content creators for usage as background music in online videos, presentations,
and photo slide shows. With all that being said about the Sync Licensing
feature, you keep 100% ownership of your compositions and recordings, with the
option to cancel and opt out at anytime you see fit. According to (CDBaby.com, 2013) “CD Baby delivers to more retailers and offers
more options than any other music distributor, and unlike other services, we'll
never charge an annual fee.” (P, 1) CDbaby.com is a sweet deal for any novice artists
who wants to self-publish their own works.